The Dragon Nimbus Novels: Volume III: Volume III

more than people.
    Just then, Rollett dove into the shuttle headfirst. He landed awkwardly on the floor. “Shut the door!” That mob is getting angrier by the minute.”
    Lyman fussed with a series of buttons set beside the door until it whooshed shut. Maia remained outside with her Rover clan.
    “They’re insane,” Rollett muttered as the closing door muffled the noise. “Maia is telling Piedro that Rovers must start adding the Tambootie to their food to offset the plague. She’s planning recipes spiced with timboor—the berries for Stargods’ sake—the most toxic part of the entire tree. She’ll kill them all.”
    “They’re all magicians,” Powwell said. “They’ll give each other immunity from the Tambootie through their strange magic.”
    The muffled shouts of the mob outside continued to filter into the much quieter machine.
    “What about the rest of them out there?” Yaala asked. She thrust out her chin, challenging her companions to give her a solution. “Not everyone in Hanassa is a Rover or a magician. A lot of people will die from the plague unless we do something to help.”
    “Rollett, go forward with Yaala,” Powwell said. “Keep her there while I do this.”
    “You give orders as if you expect to be obeyed. You’ve grown up, Powwell.” Rollett eyed him curiously.
    “That happens when you’ve killed your sister and undertaken your only option for escape, which may just kill us all.” Powwell turned his back on the other two magicians. He sought a pulse in the neck of the desperately ill man. A feeble flutter told him the man’s heart continued to beat—irregularly.
    Decisively, before his fears could stop him, Powwell sat crossed-legged beside Kinnsell. When he was comfortable, he took three deep breaths to trigger a trance. His focus narrowed to himself and Kinnsell. The edges of his vision darkened. His head lightened as if he floated toward the void.
    He removed a sheaf of pages torn from one of Lyman’s precious books back home and studied them a moment. When he had the ritual memorized, he took one of Thorny’s dried spines from his pocket. He examined it closely for the sharpest point. Thorny hunched and protested inside Powwell’s pocket. The little hedgehog crawled out of the protective hiding place, digging his claws into Powwell. His gibbering insisted that Powwell stop.
    Powwell ignored the advice of his familiar and stabbed his palm deeply, ripping his palm open in a jagged slash with the spine. He squeezed the edges of the wound until it bled freely. He repeated the procedure with Kinnsell’s limp hand.
    Thorny jumped off Powwell’s lap and scurried away.
    “No, Powwell! You can’t do this. You don’t know for sure it will work. Thorny is frightened. Listen to your familiar.” Yaala launched herself onto his back, jerking his bloody palm away from contact with Kinnsell.
    “I said, keep her up front and don’t interfere,” Powwell barked.
    “I can’t let you kill yourself, Powwell. We’ll find another way out of Hanassa.” Yaala kicked at Rollett as he dragged her away from Powwell.
    “I have to do this, Yaala. It’s the only way. Comfort Thorny. He likes you.”
    “But . . .” Her protests died on a sob.
    Powwell took three more deep breaths to bring himself completely into his trance. His vision narrowed again. His hand glowed, the blood taking on a luminescence like a ruby in the sunlight. Or a red-tipped dragon soaring across the Great Bay. The void beckoned Powwell to soar with dragons in the vast nothingness between the planes of existence.
    He resisted the urge to flee into the blackness and away from his task. Stinging pain in his hand signaled a weakening of his magic and his resolve.
    The aura of power shining around his self-inflicted wound extended to Kinnsell’s hand. The king’s blood didn’t shine or reflect light, a sure sign of the advancing disease.
    Resolutely, Powwell placed his palm atop Kinnsell’s, aligning the wounds perfectly. Lacking a silk scarf to bind the two hands together he signaled Lyman to wrap his old-fashioned sash belt around them. The moment the cool blue fabric touched his skin, he knew it to be silk. Leave it to Lyman’s antique wardrobe to cover all contingencies.
    “My blood to your blood,” Powwell recited the litany of healing he’d stolen from the library. Behind his eyes he
    “saw” his blood mingling with his patient’s. He pushed the residual Tambootie in his blood to the surface,